Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Boy Books Linky Party (and an excuse to shop!)

Courtney at Swimming into Second is hosting an important linky party right now all about the best books for boys.

I have done a few Donor's Choose projects just for books for my boys. As a girl myself, I'm always drawn to certain books when I buy for my classroom... I try really hard to get things that will appeal to boys too and have found some good ones!

I've linked to Amazon on all of the book pictures, so if you want to learn more just click!

I LOVE the Moongobble series by Bruce Coville.

This 5 book series is about a boy named Edward and a not-so-skillful wizard named Moongobble. Moongobble has a good heart but just about every spell he tries to do turns something into cheese!

There is also a character named the Rusty Knight who cannot hear very well... which makes for some interesting conversations! The series was a GREAT boy friendly read aloud when I taught 1st and 2nd grade. I read my class the whole series.

With my 3rd graders, I read the first two books- The Dragon of Doom and The Weeping Werewolf. My boys couldn't WAIT to get their paws on the rest after I finished the 2nd one!

Another favorite character in my class is Freddie Fernortner.

The Freddie Fernortner series is about a 1st grader, his friends, and his cat who chews bubble gum. We love Freddie! The kids get in all sorts of silly situations. The books are at just about a beginning of 3rd grade level, so perfect for enticing reluctant readers! This is one that I read the first two books of and the kids couldn't wait to read the rest.

Of course the DK books are always a hit... I have lots of DK Star Wars books in my room that range from super easy...

to right on level...

I love those books because 1.) they have a non-fiction vibe complete with extra text features, 2.) they are typically less than $4, and 3.) they are often available on Amazon for the 4-for-3 promotion!

Two more of my favs...

When I was a kid I LOVED the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. Did you know they have been re-released with new adventures in more of a picture book format? We love them! I actually have them at my partner reading table and the kids love reading them and making decisions with their partners. These are always a hit, especially with kids who don't LOVE reading because they are exciting and provide choices in the text!

Last, my boys love love love joke books. Any kind of joke books. They love them! I have a huge collection of joke books. They are great for practicing reading fluency... jokes aren't funny if they aren't read with the right inflection and expression and kids figure that our quickly.

We just got this one about a month ago and it's a hit!

So, hopefully you read something interesting in this incredibly long post! :) If you are going to buy one of the things I shared with you, check out the Moongobble books. They are hilarious read alouds and a great way to hook reluctant boys!

Head over to Courtney's blog and share your best boy books too! I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Happy New Year, Christina! I was blog hopping when I read about your linky on 1,2,3 Teach with Me, so I decided to hop over and check out your blog. I love the interesting patterns that run throughout your blog--so uber cute! And getting boys to read sometimes is really tough, so it's great to be shown new resources that are out there. Blogs like yours inspire me. I just started blogging about 2 months ago and I'm still trying to get my blog off the ground (so to speak...lol). In order to get a few more followers, I'm having a Birthday giveaway (my birthday is this month), and I'm trying to spread the word. Up for grabs is a $15.00 Starbucks giftcard for every 25 new followers! Hope you'll hop by and register and also help me spread the word! The giveaway ends January 22--My birthday! Thanks again. I am your newest follower. Michele @ http://the-lightbulb-lab.blogspot.com

I need to take notes on this since I have two boys of my own! I just found that National Geographic for little kids over Christmas break. I got a subscription for my son and for his friend and it is a huge hit! I'm also going to bring that in for my class. The reading level is good for my firsties right now, and not too overwhelming with tons of content. My first grade boys LOVE the star wars collection! I definitely need to get more of those. Thanks for posting these great books for us!SarahSarah's First Grade Snippets

Hey! just found your blog and am your newest follower! :) I found that the boys in my 2nd grade class really love the 'Ready Freddy' and 'Magic Tree House' series... They go through them like crazy! I had not heard of those other two series you mentioned.. I'll have to look into them to add more variety to my class library... thank so much!!